When Lulu Bonfils heard she had been cast in the lookbook for Rihanna’s debut lingerie line, Savage X Fenty, she screamed. It had been in the ether of the modeling world that the project was happening, that it would feature curve models, but Lulu hadn’t even attended any castings — she was merely holding out hope “that they had heard of me,” she told Teen Vogue, just a day before the line was slated to drop.

Lulu was optioned, and before she knew it, she was cast in the shoot, leaving class (she’s a freshman drawing student at New York’s Pratt Institute) and packing for Malibu, where the shoot took place earlier this year. They set up camp at a “ginormous” rented-out guesthouse that looked out over a private stretch of a natural rock beach, accessible by a creaky set of wooden stairs Lulu described — an idyllic setting for a dream job. In the lookbook released ahead of the launch, Lulu, who has chest-length blonde hair, green eyes, and a smattering of tattoos on her right arm, appears in two lingerie sets: an embroidered black-lace bra from the “Damn” collection and a blush-pink T-shirt bra and matching high-waisted underwear from the “On the Reg” line. Sun and surf radiate from the background as Lulu stands against the half-light of a sun rising or setting.

The campaign’s other images and videos also feature returning Fenty models like Jazzelle Zanaughtti, who has walked for FentyxPuma by Rihanna during New York Fashion Week, and Slick Woods, one of the faces of Fenty Beauty. On the eve of the launch, though, Lulu still hadn’t met Rihanna: The leader of the Fenty empire wasn't in Malibu. She went to London to oversee, and appear in, the other half of the lookbook. That would soon change at the brand’s Brooklyn launch party Thursday evening — both the singer and her hologram were in attendance. Lulu planned to wear a polka-dotted mesh baby doll dress with marabou feather detailing, a piece from the Savage X Fenty line that she described as “very classic showgirl” and “also just really cute.” But in any case, Rihanna had already been posting images from the campaign, referring to Lulu as “my girl,” which, just imagine that for a second.

“The attitude of it is, the pieces are very powerful but sexy and soft but strong,” Lulu said of the line. “It’s like, people’s favorite kind of extra lingerie pieces that you really just feel very sexy in.”

Savage X Fenty, like Fenty Beauty before it, is also remarkably inclusive: sizewise, it ranges from 32A to 44DD in bras and from XS to 3X in underwear. (Some have pointed out, of course, that the bra sizes are still limited; even so, they extend beyond the 40DDD that is the outer limit of Victoria’s Secret, for example.) In one campaign video, Jazzelle discusses gender nonconformity; and the line features an array of nude shades corresponding to different skin tones. Alongside one of the promotional videos, in which model Audrey Ritchie describes feeling sexiest in the morning, “rolls, cellulite, stretch marks” and all, Rihanna captioned, “Savages come in all shapes and sizes!!” Lulu also pointed out that Savage X Fenty’s emphasis on diversity isn’t simply about sizes but “it’s also really inclusive towards different skin tones and showing that in their ads and showing different kinds of people modeling their clothes,” she said, adding that it’s “changing what lingerie is and how it’s marketed.” Some of the models, like Jazzelle and Slick, model full-time; others, like artist and designer Akua Shabaka, also work in adjacent fields in fashion and the arts.

Lulu’s interest in fashion was sown at a young age: She was around nine when she started watching Project Runway “religiously” with her mother and her elder sister, who is now also a student at Pratt. Growing up in Darien, Connecticut, a homogeneous suburban town, she began experimenting with fashion in her teens. By 16, she had signed with Wilhelmina Models as part of its curve roster (she's now represented by Muse Models), booked a job with Diesel, and walked for Gypsy Sport at New York Fashion Week. Campaigns for Glossier and Nike soon followed — and by the end of high school, she had worked out a system of going to classes part time and working the rest of the time.

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The body-positive angle was something that appealed to her in Savage X Fenty, she said — that and “I was just really excited to model Fenty clothes,” she added, laughing. After all, Lulu has been quite transparent about body image, as well as mental health, on her own platforms — both her Instagram and in interviews, where she’s discussed working through anxiety and obsessive-compulsive habits. Sometimes, it’s simply a subtle reference: “mental illness rly b doing the dam thing,” she captioned one selfie late last year. This openness didn’t always come so naturally; when she was younger, she tended to allow thoughts and emotions to fester in her head without communicating them.

But in her early teens, she began seeing a therapist: “That’s when I got a lot more comfortable speaking about it and kind of breaking down my own issues,” she said. “I feel like because I have this position of reach to a certain amount of people, I think it’s just important to show people that it’s okay to talk about things openly, and it’s okay to discuss what you’re feeling without being afraid. I think it relieves a lot of pressure.” Now 18, Lulu fields direct messages from other young women who describe how her feed — filled with artful selfies and modeling images — has helped them on what she describes as “their body journey.”

She is not immune to the “weird, creepy things” strangers sometimes DM her, but she said she has “developed a pretty thick skin” thanks to a couple years working as a model. (Plus, she takes screen grabs of the especially outrageous ones and posts them to her Instagram stories as something of a last word.) And she’s fueled by the positive comments and messages she receives: “That’s the main thing that I remember when I’m working,” she said. “It’s not just about me and just about how I’m feeling. I’m doing this for young girls so they won’t have to feel how all of us felt when we were younger.”